"Turn back" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Berlin society of learned men has set itself with remarkable firmness against the most important advances of science. Virchow's former colleague, the deceased Stahl, with a similar purpose and with great success, preached this principle: "Science must turn back again." Just as at the present day the Berlin biologists have opposed the most obstinate and pertinacious resistance to the greatest scientific stride of this century, so did it happen in former times with regard to other ...
— Freedom in Science and Teaching. - from the German of Ernst Haeckel • Ernst Haeckel
... to be followed by others until he was so far committed that he could not retrace his steps, and two shadows were with him constantly now, one always reproaching him for what he had done, and the other telling him it was now too late to turn back. ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... turn back, the savage will be persuaded we have seen him and are afraid," he said. "We must e'en take our chance. It may be he hath no evil intent, though the road be lonely and travelers few. Whatever his purpose, it is safer to go on than to stand still," and, tightening ...
— The Puritan Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... what I have said before?—Turn back, thou egregious arguer, turn back to my long letter of the 13th,* and thou wilt there find every syllable of what thou hast written either ...
— Clarissa, Volume 3 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... could not be meant for him; they were merely a general order; there were twenty men—forty men in that company more wicked than he! He could not turn back and face them to glide into his place again; it would be certain death; but when the Chief of the Ten or Father Gianmaria should begin to speak, he must ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... best course is to pursue the pursuer. So, when M. Barbemouche and his troop of Guisards had gone some distance down the road, I came forth from the shed and followed them, afoot, keeping well to the roadside, ready to vanish, should any of them turn back. It was evident that Barbemouche had little or no hope of catching me on the road. His plan was to surprise me at my chateau, or to lie there in wait for me. He had not shown any persistence in questioning the landlord. The latter, through laziness or sheer stupidity, or ...
— An Enemy To The King • Robert Neilson Stephens
... astonishment which spread over Copplestone's face on hearing this announcement seemed to afford his companion great amusement, and she laughed merrily as she signed to him to turn back towards the woods. ...
— Scarhaven Keep • J. S. Fletcher
... four or five miles, before reaching the Jordan, a rich harvest of wheat was being reaped upon the plain. We first attempted to cross at Samakh, but finding it impossible at that season, had to turn back to the ford at the broken bridge, which the natives call the 'mother of arches,' (Umm el Kanater;) and even there the water ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn
... It was as though the whole nation were rushing towards the edge of the precipice which overhung the bottomless pit, like a herd of frightened horses on the prairie, and these men with their unaided hands turned them back. It would be impossible for one man to turn back a whole army in mad flight—he would necessarily be swept away in their rush; but this is precisely what the expression attributes to the exertions of Elijah and John. The one turned Israel back to cry, Jehovah, He ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer
... park. The weather was raw and gusty, and the ground hard frozen. They had been merely strolling up and down before the house, as they often did, but, being in earnest conversation, had forgotten at last to turn back, and had gone on along the avenue, till they were far from the old mansion and quite out of sight. They had been talking of Paul's approaching departure, and they were both in low spirits at ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... days he was goin' ever more, antil at last the Waiver seen a crowd o' people runnin' as if owld Nick was at their heels, and they shoutin' a thousand murdhers, and cryin' "The dhraggin, the dhraggin!" and he couldn't stop the horse nor make him turn back, but away he pelted right forninst the terrible baste that was comin' up to him, and there was the most nefarious smell o' sulphur, savin' your presence, enough to knock you down; and, faith, the Waiver seen he had no time to lose, and so he threw himself off the horse, and made to a ...
— Half-Hours with Great Story-Tellers • Various
... over its shoulder, and at once Guph ran to the bridge and leaped over the sentinel's back before it could turn back again. The scarlet monster made a snap at the Nome's left foot, but missed it ...
— The Emerald City of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... heartless thing to do to leave Robin to his fate, but for all that Tom could not make up his mind to turn back and search for him; for he felt it was quite probable he would only fall into a cunningly-devised ambush. But he could not ride all night through the forest. He might fetch a circuit all unknowingly, and find himself in the midst of the footpads again. The ...
— Tom Tufton's Travels • Evelyn Everett-Green
... good, Lightning Speed,' said Hollyhock. 'You have done the worst now, and shall have an apple for your pains. Then we must turn back; but the backward leap will not be so dangerous by ...
— Hollyhock - A Spirit of Mischief • L. T. Meade
... frankly, Johnson, I imagine that he wants to get the crew so far away that it will be impossible for them to turn back. Now, if he had appeared on board when we set sail, and every one had known where we were going, he might have ...
— The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... found him waiting for me at this bridge, to which he sarcastically pointed with his bow, I felt that had he known of it, to have made difficulties before would have been a work of supererogation. He seemed to think I should certainly turn back, and assured me there was no other crossing (a statement I afterwards found to be untrue); so, comforting myself with the hope that if the danger were imminent, Meepo would forcibly stop me, I took off my shoes, and walked steadily over: the ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... out the stones there, after blocking the place below. One of these two bits of work is bound to keep those who have dismounted to climb after me from climbing any farther, and when I begin to fire at them pretty sharply they'll turn back at once, get to their horses, and join their mates, to have a palaver and come to the conclusion that it isn't safe to stop in the valley, because they'll be expecting every moment for fire to be opened by us. Then they'll ride back without another shot being fired at them, for ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... begin to imagine. I'm secretive. But I quiver with hot and stirring desires. And I'm indolent—dirty indolent. Benham, there are days when I splash my bath about without getting into it. There are days when I turn back from a walk because there's a cow in the field.... But, I spare you the viler details.... And it's that makes me hate fine people and try so earnestly to persuade myself that any man is as good as any man, if not a trifle better. Because I ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... began to be visible in front of her, she perceived lying by the roadside what looked like a large bundle of old clothes. Coming nearer, she found that it was a man apparently fast asleep, his head hidden by his arms. Suspecting him, from his attitude, to be tipsy, she felt for a moment inclined to turn back, but her hesitation seemed so foolish that it was immediately conquered, and, keeping on the opposite side, she walked quietly past. She had scarcely done so, however, when a loud discordant shout ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 1 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... back," she said. "Why did you turn back? I thought you were going over the divide ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... dusk though it is, they notice that something more than usual is up. Five minutes afterwards half a dozen armed horsemen thunder out to meet Dugald. They hear his story, and all return to alarm the colony and put the whole place in a state of defence. Then under the guidance of Dugald they turn back once more—a party of twenty strong now—towards the hills, just as the moon, which is almost full, is rising and shining through between the ...
— Our Home in the Silver West - A Story of Struggle and Adventure • Gordon Stables
... cannot turn back, you will have to go without a kangaroo, even though we may shoot one," said Bracewell, and telling Toby to wish them a ...
— Adventures in Australia • W.H.G. Kingston
... a reproduction of the frontispiece to Avogadro's work on the sanctuary of S. Michele, from which I have already quoted; it is a very pretty and effective piece of work, but those who are good enough to turn back to p. 93, and to believe that I have drawn carefully, will see how disappointing Avogadro's frontispiece must be to those who hold, as most of us will, that a draughtsman's first business is to put down what he sees, and to let prettiness take care ...
— Alps and Sanctuaries of Piedmont and the Canton Ticino • Samuel Butler
... seemed that even as she had said, the thought of policy and state came first of necessity, setting aside such a vision as any simple thane would surely have thought held him from a journey he would take. Indeed, many a one would have given it up for far less, for I have known men turn back when already started, because a harmless hare crossed their path or a lone magpie sat on a wayside tree. Maybe I minded such like myself once, but service with Carl mended that. If he bade a man do a thing, that man ...
— A King's Comrade - A Story of Old Hereford • Charles Whistler
... each other, Pompey on the right, and Caesar on the left bank of the River Apsus. Caesar was now greatly in want of re-enforcements, and such was his impatience that he attempted to sail across the Adriatic in a small boat. The waves ran so high that the sailors wanted to turn back, till Caesar discovered himself, telling them that they earned Caesar and his fortunes. They then toiled on, but the storm at length compelled them to return, and with difficulty they reached again the coast of Greece. Shortly ...
— A Smaller History of Rome • William Smith and Eugene Lawrence
... Gideon halted, Holding aloof the night, When Joshua's arm was exalted, Yet never retraced his flight; Nor will he turn back, nor can he, He chases the future fast; The future is blank—oh, Annie! I fain ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... deaths we witnessed.' And if, like contagion, they were not palpable to the senses, such a person might go on to affirm that no proof existed of there being any such thing as musket-balls." Now let the student turn back to the chapter on Hydrophobia in the same volume. He will find that John Hunter knew a case in which, of twenty-one persons bitten, only one died of the disease. He will find that one dog at Charenton was bitten at different times by thirty different mad dogs, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... use to wait for the Boss; he will not come," said the log-brander. "I came to tell Monsieur, before I go on, that le Cure is safe at Chaumiere Noire. Yes, he is safe, and Monsieur Jakapa have turn back, when I catch up with ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... of time they mount up and make a great deal. And, Mary dear, I've always found if you once start in a path and are determined to keep on, somebody's sure to come along and lend a helping hand, when you think you have got to the end of every thing, and must stop or turn back." ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... gold, his face red, his eyes blue; he had a wide-brimmed gray hat and no collar or waistcoat; he was inspiring; he had just come home—had landed that very day! Our meeting caused an eddy in the current of humanity. Hurried people would run against us, then walk round us, and turn back to look at that giant. We tried to compress seven years of life into seven exclamations; then, suddenly appeased, walked sedately along, giving one another the news of yesterday. Jackson gazed about him, like a man who looks for landmarks, then ...
— Tales of Unrest • Joseph Conrad
... the land should extend so far southward; but if the land should fall off before you have reached the said latitude, and should be found to trend eastward, you will follow its eastern extension for some time, and finding no further extension to southward, you will not proceed farther east, but turn back. You will do the same if you should find the land to turn to westward. In returning you will run along the coast as far as it extends to northward, next proceeding on an eastern course or in such wise as you shall find the land to extend: in which manner you will ...
— The Part Borne by the Dutch in the Discovery of Australia 1606-1765 • J. E. Heeres
... on that craft, didn't he!" asked the naval officer, as the crowd began to turn back from ...
— The Submarine Boys' Lightning Cruise - The Young Kings of the Deep • Victor G. Durham
... and ready to move. We were fully assured in our minds that a battle was to be fought that day; in fact Colonel Burnside had the day before stated to our officers that, although the period for which we enlisted had expired, he did not purpose to turn back at such a time, in the face of the enemy, and when the government needed our services; and it is to the credit of the regiment, and the State of Rhode Island, that regardless of the expiration of our term of enlistment we manfully did ...
— History of Company F, 1st Regiment, R.I. Volunteers, during the Spring and Summer of 1861 • Charles H. Clarke
... fragile, pale countenance, hid by the darkness. There was no faltering now. Katherine did not think to turn back; that her heart was not with Sir Julian, that she would ever regret this greatest moment in her life, but ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... giving expression to their thanks for her bounty, when the managers and eunuchs respectfully announced: "It is already a quarter to three, and may it please your Majesty to turn back your imperial chariot;" whereupon, much against her will, the Chia consort's eyes brimmed over, and she once more gave vent to tears. Forcing herself however again to put on a smile, she clasped old lady Chia's and madame Wang's hands, and could not bring herself to let them go; ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... gradually shaped some image for himself of what had happened during the years of the marriage, piecing it together from Buntingford's agitated talk. But he was not prepared for a sudden statement made just as they were reaching the spot where Alcott would naturally turn back towards the Rectory. It came with ...
— Helena • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... anticipations of peaceable repose were rudely dispelled; for when we rode up on the summit of the hill, the sight that met our eyes was appalling enough to excite the gravest apprehensions. It was a large camp of Comanches, evidently there for the purpose of robbery and murder. We could neither turn back nor go on either side of them on account of the mountainous character of the country, and we realized, when too late, that we were in ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... hear Dannie sayin' what it was? This little arrangemint is my cicly-meter, like they put on wheels, and buggies now, to tell how far you've traveled. The way this works, I just tie this silk thrid to me door knob and off I walks, it a reeling out behind, and whin I turn back it takes up as I come, and whin I get home I take the yardstick and measure me string, and be the same token, it tells me how far I've traveled." As he talked he drew out another shining length and added it to the first, and then another and a last, fine as a wheat straw. "These last jints I'm ...
— At the Foot of the Rainbow • Gene Stratton-Porter
... omen he will go on, but if the reverse he will sit down on the spot where he is, as long as he thinks that he ought to tarry before going on again. Or, if in travelling along the road he sees a swallow fly by, should its direction be lucky he will proceed, but if not he will turn back again; in fact they are worse (in these whims) than ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... looked at him and knew him for the herdsman, who had charge of pasturing my fellows, and with him were many others in like case. As soon as he saw me, he knew me to be in possession of my reason and not afflicted like the rest whom he was pasturing; so signed to me from afar, as who should say, "Turn back and take the right-hand road, for that will lead thee into the King's highway." So I turned back, as he bade me, and followed the right-hand road, now running for fear and then walking leisurely to rest me, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... way by land to Fort Osage, where he was joined by the steamer. Major Long turned his stay at Fort Osage to account by sending a party to examine the districts between the Kansas and the Platte, but this party was attacked, robbed, and compelled to turn back after losing all their horses. After obtaining at Cow Island a reinforcement of fifteen soldiers, the expedition reached Fort Lisa, near Council Bluff, on the 19th September. There it was decided to winter. The Americans suffered greatly from scurvy, and having no medicines ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... evenings in succession I had even stolen out upon the street, without a hat, so that the servants might think I was looking for something in the house, but whenever I came near the grocery store such a violent trembling seized me that I was obliged to turn back whether I wanted to or not. At last, however, as I said, I couldn't wait any longer. I took courage, and one evening left my room, this time also without a hat, went downstairs and walked with a firm step through the street to the grocery store, in front of which I stopped for a moment, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... to go westward was on us nevertheless. It seemed hard to turn back after getting so far along the great path of the human race; and one had to reason with oneself—Foolish soul, whither would you go? You cannot go westward for ever. If you go up the Orinoco, you will long to go up the Meta. If ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... had been set for the return of the "exploraging" party. They were simply going to paddle up the river as far as they could go and then turn back. ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey
... a few questions, then said to the girl: "You walk straight through that woods, turn neither to right nor left, and never turn back an inch, and pick me out a straight stick, the straighter the better; but pick only one, ...
— Woodland Tales • Ernest Seton-Thompson
... Wars, tumultuous Broils And bloody Factions of a mighty Land, Whose people haughty, proud with foreign spoyls; Upon their selves turn back their conquering hand ...
— The Lives of the Most Famous English Poets (1687) • William Winstanley
... already he had gone too far in his plans for restitution—or was it self-preservation?—to turn back. It was late in the night that he himself secretly admitted to the house a tall, dark-haired stranger who ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... we're tired out." The moderation of these words but ill expressed his tumultuous mind. That was it, his passionate understanding told him. The natural world throws its distorted shadows, and our eyes have to be at their strongest not to recoil in panic, while we turn back to strike. "And," he said, because she seemed to be mired here in the bog of her own wonderment, "in the morning of course he ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... Common: l/r square bracket; l/r bracket; <opening/closing bracket>; bracket/unbracket. Rare: square/unsquare; [U turn/U turn back]. ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... have Napoleon order the whole ten thousand destroyed, and her to leave France in three days! Her two sons attempted to see Bonaparte, who was at Fontainebleau, but were ordered to turn back, or they would be arrested. The only reason given for destroying the work was the fact that she had been silent about the great ...
— Lives of Girls Who Became Famous • Sarah Knowles Bolton
... the roses spring up by thy feet that the rocks of the wilderness wore. Ah! when thy Balder comes back and we gather the gains he hath won, Shall we not linger a little to talk of thy sweetness of old, Yea, turn back awhile to thy travail whence the Gods ...
— Poems By The Way & Love Is Enough • William Morris
... Oh! it rains again. It beats against the window. Mary Jane and I have been wet through once already to-day; we set off in the donkey-carriage for Farringdon, as I wanted to see the improvement Mr. Woolls is making, but we were obliged to turn back before we got there, but not soon enough to avoid a pelter all the way home. We met Mr. Woolls. I talked of its being bad weather for the hay, and he returned me the comfort of its being much worse for the wheat. We hear that Mrs. S. does not ...
— Memoir of Jane Austen • James Edward Austen-Leigh
... the same way he does everything else—by making friends with people," she declared. "Girls, I hope you realize how ashamed I am of last night's proceedings. I never dreamed that anything had happened to you, or I should have certainly forced Charlie Meyers to turn back. But I think I have learned a lesson. Charlie Meyers was horribly rude to you, Bab, and I told him what we thought of him after you left. I don't want to see him again. So Father, at least, will be glad. Though how I am to get on in this world ...
— The Automobile Girls At Washington • Laura Dent Crane
... cattle-men. In winter, it was closed by snow and ice. Yet now, Douglas was convinced that, unless big snows had stopped her, Judith was attempting that perilous passage. She was by now cooled down; she would not turn back. Pride, resentment, restlessness, and that virile love of adventure which only increased as she grew older, would urge her on and on. And to cross Black Devil Pass in winter was a feat which even Charleton ...
— Judith of the Godless Valley • Honore Willsie
... the switching trains let down, he could hear the hoisting engines. Once he stopped and looked eastward at the clouds of illuminated smoke above the factories and at the red blast of the rolling mill. He went nearly to the river and had to turn back and walk slowly. Finally he heard Max's laugh, and then he saw them ...
— Calumet "K" • Samuel Merwin and Henry Kitchell Webster
... such a power from such a distance! that, across a continent it took four years to traverse, could compel such obedience; could by a word or a nod bring proud Princes with rage and rebellion in their hearts to his court—not to be honored and enriched, but degraded and insulted; then in shame to turn back with their boyars and retinues,—if indeed they were permitted to go back at all,—one-half of whom would perish from exhaustion by the way. What was the secret of such a power? Even with all the modern appliances for conveying the will of a sovereign to-day, ...
— A Short History of Russia • Mary Platt Parmele
... that day until he told her that it was time for her to turn back. With Ragtime standing quiet, she laid her face against his, and complained that he had promised her she should never be allowed to go more than arms' length away from him, once she ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... old Miller, who had been like a father to me; it cost me, too, something of a struggle to give up the free, independent wild-wood life I had hitherto led; but I had marked out my course, and had never been one to flinch or turn back. ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... clinking as the foot sank in them. At the Vaughn home it was an eventful day. Santa Claus—well, he is the great Captain that leads us to the farther gate of childhood and surrenders the golden key. Many ways are beyond the gate, some steep and thorny; and some who pass it turn back with bleeding feet and wet eyes, but the gate opens not again for any that have passed. Tom had got the key and begun to try it. Santa Claus had winked at him with a snaring eye, like that of his aunt when she had sugar in her pocket, and Tom thought it very foolish. ...
— Darrel of the Blessed Isles • Irving Bacheller
... minister, "that's what it is to be an onpopular man. And now I'll hae to turn back, for the very anes that winna let me join them would be the first to complain if I gaed ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... filled with the minutest form of all, called a Monad. These are so small that two thousand of them could lie side by side in an inch; that is, if you could make them lie at all, for they are the most restless little beings, darting hither and thither, scarcely even halting except to turn back. And yet though there are so many of them, and as far as we know they have no organs of sight, they never run up against each other, but glide past more cleverly than any clear-sighted fish. These creatures are mostly to be found among decaying ...
— Young Folks' Library, Volume XI (of 20) - Wonders of Earth, Sea and Sky • Various
... ill, and sent down the night before for Doctor Torvey. He was away with a patient. Now, in the morning, he had arrived inopportunely. He met Sir Bale as he issued from the house, and had a word with him in the court, for he would not turn back. ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... former; I call this the "water-king." The flower presents a deep golden-coloured cup, the concave petals of which are clouded in the centre with a dark reddish- brown, that forms a striking contrast to the gay anthers, which are very numerous, and turn back from the centre of the flower, falling like fringes of gold one over the other, in successive rows, till they fill up the ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill
... hear it plainly now—footsteps, coming nearer. Heavily, hesitatingly, as if not knowing whether to go on or turn back. ...
— The Song Of The Blood-Red Flower • Johannes Linnankoski
... I knew I ought to be removed from you—I believed that those who are debarred from earthly happiness are marked for especial tasks. I never intended you to know what actuated me, and now the work is undertaken, and— and I cannot turn back," he added quickly, as if ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... innate capacity, and it is evident that social development will go on faster or slower, will stop or turn back, according to the resistances it meets. In a general way these obstacles to improvement may, in relation to the society itself, be classed as external and internal—the first operating with greater force in the earlier ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... falling we proposed taking a short walk with our friends, and then going on board. But as soon as they saw us go up the hill instead of returning to the boat, they became very uneasy, and wanted us to turn back. As we had reason, however, to conjecture that the women and children were on the other side of the hill, we went on in the expectation of getting a sight of them before dark. This the Coreans prevented by following us with shouts ...
— Account of a Voyage of Discovery - to the West Coast of Corea, and the Great Loo-Choo Island • Captain Basil Hall
... know that they loved him," Edgar said, "but they feared him. Their laws were very cruel ones, and it was death to turn back in battle." ...
— The Dash for Khartoum - A Tale of Nile Expedition • George Alfred Henty
... summit of the mountain, waiting a renewal of the sound, that I might determine the course of the dog and choose my position,—stimulated by the ambition of all young Nimrods to bag some notable game. Long I waited, and patiently, till, chilled and benumbed, I was about to turn back, when, hearing a slight noise, I looked up and beheld a most superb fox, loping along with inimitable grace and ease, evidently disturbed, but not pursued by the hound, and so absorbed in his private meditations ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... friend, I would my tongue could cry as my heart cries— Turn back from darkness before the hour has struck! Even yet may mercy fold you. God is great And tender; and perhaps His love may clasp Even your aloofness, if at last your heart Calls in repentance to Him. O Faust, Faust, Sink your vain pride of spirit—kneel to Him— ...
— Mr. Faust • Arthur Davison Ficke
... children, and all so plainly dressed that she merely glanced at them as they passed. Some distance further she walked in her eager quest, when she met an old Scotch gardener, of whom she asked if there was any chance of her encountering the Queen anywhere on the domain. "Weel, ye maun, turn back and rin a good bit, for you've passed her Mawjesty, the Prince, and ...
— Queen Victoria, her girlhood and womanhood • Grace Greenwood
... will only make you sick in your stomach and cause you to remember a lot of things which you had much better forget, but the Great Medicine, or rather Zikali who is in it, will keep the assegais and sickness out of you and turn back bad magic on to the heads of those who sent it, and always bring us plenty to eat and perhaps, if we are lucky, a little to drink ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... who had held me up had suggested I should turn back, and as long as I was willing to be arrested it seemed as though I might accompany the German army even to the gates of Paris. But my reception in Enghien should have warned me to get back to Brussels. The Germans, thinking I was an English spy, scowled at me; and the Belgians, thinking the ...
— With the Allies • Richard Harding Davis
... the wind suddenly sprang into fury, and lashed the flakes into their faces with cutting force, even Alice was ready to turn back. ...
— The Moving Picture Girls Snowbound - Or, The Proof on the Film • Laura Lee Hope
... ten in the forenoon. His two dogs showed a manifest desire to accompany him, but he did not think fit to gratify their desire and ordered them back. Before he had ridden far the rain ceased, and the sun came out warm and bright, but he was in an idle mood, and didn't think it worth while to turn back. It seems probable indeed, that he had merely wanted an excuse for an idle day in town; as there was no real necessity for such a journey. Upon reaching the front street he stabled his mare at the Peacock Inn, which was his usual house of call ...
— The Gerrard Street Mystery and Other Weird Tales • John Charles Dent
... as far as the Great Vase, so he arranged with himself. If she were not there—it was not likely that she would be—he would turn back into Albany Street. The newsvendors' shops with their display of the cheaper illustrated papers, the second-hand furniture dealers with their faded engravings and old prints, would give him something to look at, to take away his thoughts from himself. But seeing her in the distance, almost the ...
— Malvina of Brittany • Jerome K. Jerome
... for I know my way. The road may have appeared dark at first when my eyes were unaccustomed to its sharp turns, but for a year it has been divinely illumined for me. Even if it grew longer each day, it will never seem dark again. Although torn by thorns and cut by stones, nothing can make me turn back. I know that I shall go on, steadfast to the end. I behold before me Victory.... But there,—behind me, is a multitude sorely troubled in ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... might almost believe that he was running from the law. He would not turn back for it if it was bound in gold instead of leather. It is no account, I'll warrant, or he would not have been ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... the age of three years." On the return of the regiment to Wicklow, Roger Sterne again sent to collect his family around him. "We embarked for Dublin, and had all been cast away by a most violent storm; but, through the intercession of my mother, the captain was prevailed upon to turn back into Wales, where we stayed a month, and at length got into Dublin, and travelled by land to Wicklow, where my father had, for some weeks, given us over for lost." Here a year passed, and another child, Devijeher—so called after the colonel of the regiment—was born. "From thence we ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... cave—that we had used as a shelf for the storage of various small matters during our sojourn there—a little volume that he dearly loved: the Meditations of Thomas a Kempis. He was full of remorse for his forgetfulness, and did not ask that we should turn back to get his book for him; yet his distress over the loss of it was so evident that we had not the heart to ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... for the night, she said: "As soon as the steamboat casts off, and it's too late to turn back, I will tell you what I have ...
— Two on the Trail - A Story of the Far Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... is going off, and I find I shall conform in time to that state of life to which it has pleased God to call me. Besides, after all, Fleet-Street and the Strand are better places to live in for good and all than among Skiddaw. Still, I turn back to those great places where I wandered about, participating in their greatness. After all, I could not live in Skiddaw. I could spend a year—two, three years—among them, but I must have a prospect of seeing Fleet-Street at the end of that time, or I should mope and pine away, I know. Still, ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... can talk like yondhar, and I give ye lave to eat him and me off the same dish. And if 'tis a man, and he's anywhere but on the road, here's a rare bottle of hay we'll search through for him. Rest aisy now, Corp'ril, and give it up. That man with the mules, we'll say, was a liar; and turn back before the ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... hidden mysterious springs from which these crystal cups are filled, or of the unseen companions that may have strayed with their fellow to the threshold of this earth, and walk with it while it yet retains its purity and innocence; but, as it journeys on, turn back and forsake it, and return to their home, leaving their sister-soul to wander through the world with sin and ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... open, and the visiter had entered, without ringing, and advanced several steps upon the staircase. Now, however, he seemed to hesitate. Presently we heard him descending. Dupin was moving quickly to the door, when we again heard him coming up. He did not turn back a second time, but stepped up with decision, and rapped at ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... Heaven that such an ending might not overtake him. Then with care he turned his horse about, thinking to gain the point where he had become separated from the rest, and feeling that they must, sooner or later, turn back to ...
— The Rover Boys out West • Arthur M. Winfield
... about to despair, and had almost made up her mind to turn back, when the golden note rose again and she stopped, entranced. There, over her head and not five feet away, swaying perilously on a slender twig, balanced the little songster, pouring out his joy ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... weeks. The stock-keeper would be himself forced to wait on the banks of a stream that might have been crossed at once. There was nothing to hinder but the obstinacy of the herd. The bullocks would taste the water and turn back. The sheep fled in all directions, afraid to brave the liquid element. The stock-keeper hoped when night came he might manage them better, but they still refused to go forward. The rams were dragged in by force, but the sheep would not follow. They tried what thirst would do, by keeping ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... her house this evening. I have to go to thank her for my handkerchief that she sent back. Do you want me to—no!" with a sudden turn back to his desk. ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham
... cut in his clothes ran into St. Leger's troops, and out of breath told them to turn back or they would fill a drunkard's grave. Officers asked him about the numbers of the enemy, and he pointed to the leaves of the trees, shrieked, and ran for his life. He ran several days, and was barely able to keep ahead of St. Leger's troops ...
— Comic History of the United States • Bill Nye
... going to turn back," said Lady Casterley. "The bull ought not to be here. Whose fault is it? I shall speak to someone. Stand still and look at him. We ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... then addressed Mr. Mason, as follows:—'Brother, I am heartily rejoiced, and bless God that you have arrived, and especially am I gratified, that you are so much interested for the poor Karens. You will, I am assured, watch over them, and take care of them; and if some of them turn back, you will still care for them. As to my dear wife and child, I know you will do all in your power to make them comfortable. Mrs. B. will probably spend the ensuing rains in Tavoy. She will be happy with ...
— Lives of the Three Mrs. Judsons • Arabella W. Stuart
... Lord's sake, think what you are doing, and let us turn back while we can! You've had sore affliction; but it's an awful thing to bring an ...
— Miscellanea • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... matter. I told him. He started as if struck by lightning, and exclaimed, "Good Heavens! William, is it possible that we are, after all, doomed to hopeless bondage?" I could say nothing, my heart was too full to speak, for at first I did not know what to do. However we knew it would never do to turn back to the "City of Destruction," like Bunyan's Mistrust and Timorous, because they saw lions in the narrow way after ascending the hill Difficulty; but press on, like noble Christian and Hopeful, to the great ...
— Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom • William and Ellen Craft
... needed to be justified for imposing political as well as moral duties on its Initiates, it would be enough to point to the sad history of the world. It would not even need that she should turn back the pages of history to the chapters written by Tacitus: that she should recite the incredible horrors of despotism under Caligula and Domitian, Caracalla and Commodus, Vitellius and Maximin. She need only point to the centuries ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... Dunseveric and against his friend Maurice. It did not seem to him to be a fair and honourable thing to eat the bread of unsuspecting enemies. Twice, as he tramped through the rain to Dunseveric House, he stopped and almost decided to turn back. Twice he succeeded in silencing his scruples and quieting the complaints of his conscience. Each time it was the thought of Una which decided him. There was in him a hunger to see the girl, to be near her, to touch her hand, to hear her voice. Since his uncle had spoken to him ...
— The Northern Iron - 1907 • George A. Birmingham
... turn back to Canton. We pass the shops of the coffin-makers. We linger. But "No stop," says our guide; "better coffins soon." "Soon" is what the guide-books call the "City of the Dead." A number of little chapels; and laid in each a great lacquered coffin in which ...
— Appearances - Being Notes of Travel • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... do would be good (khen), therefore the Tekni bird of Thoth came into being. He gave Thoth power to embrace (anh) the heavens, therefore the Moon-god (Aah) came into being. He gave Thoth power to turn back (anan) the Northern peoples, therefore the dog-headed ape of Thoth came into being. Finally Ra told Thoth that he would take his place in the sight of all those who were wont to worship Ra, and that all should praise him as God. Thus the abdication of ...
— Legends Of The Gods - The Egyptian Texts, edited with Translations • E. A. Wallis Budge
... to the house of a relative near the coast, who provided me with clothing and funds, and I have only lately been able to commence my journey homeward. Now, however, I have a great inclination to turn back and to see you safely ...
— Paul Gerrard - The Cabin Boy • W.H.G. Kingston
... Durkin. "Turn back now? The hell you say! That damn peon got into a fight with somebody and maybe got bit by a snake later. We'll go on ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various
... away from the old home gate when you will stumble over an obstacle and fall down. Don't turn back to the old home to be comforted and helped. Get up, brush the dust off, forget your bruises, and go ahead. Go ahead, and ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge
... band of Mohegans had fallen upon them and robbed them two days before, and had destroyed twenty-three fields of their corn. Miantonomo had already come about halfway, and, after holding a council with his chiefs, he decided to push on. "No man shall turn back," he said; "we will all ...
— Once Upon A Time In Connecticut • Caroline Clifford Newton
... halt, and turn back, but for a remembrance coming into his mind which hinders, at the same time urging him to continue on. In one of his hunting excursions he had been over this ground before, and remembers that some ten miles further on a tributary stream flows into the Pilcomayo. Curious ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid
... line of Winchester and Strasburg, and could not leave it without again exposing the upper Potomac and the Baltimore and Ohio railroad. This presented (or would present when McDowell and Sumner should be gone) a great temptation to the enemy to turn back from the Rappahannock and sack Washington. My explicit order that Washington should, by the judgment of all the commanders of corps, be left entirely secure, had been neglected. It was precisely this that drove me ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... there is something that follows after sin; they know that God is not weak, but abides by his own truth. Therefore, when they have made out God to be Love, and blotted away the old, literal hell, they turn back and declare pitilessly,—'There is Law. Law punishes; and Law is inexorable. God Himself does not suspend or contradict his Law. You have sinned; you must take the consequences.' Are you better off in the clutch of that Law, than you were in the old ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... copy, and it was what he there learnt that withheld him from flying to his countrymen and resuming their faith when he found that the Christianity he had professed for forty years was no longer a protection to him. Having known the true Christ in the Gospel, he could not turn back to Mohammed, even though Christians persecuted in the Name they so ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Karduchians took to flight—having no arms for close combat on the plain. The trumpet now being heard to sound, they ran away so much the faster; while this was the signal, according to orders before given by Xenophon, for the Greeks to suspend their charge, to turn back, and to cross the river as speedily as possible. By favor of this able manoeuvre, the passage was accomplished by the whole army with little or no ...
— The Two Great Retreats of History • George Grote
... stop-gap of materialism, from evolution, and is lead at once to a supreme Intelligence which directs evolution. As soon as it comes in sight, however, certain persons take fright and turn aside or even turn back in order to avoid it. This was the case with Eimer, although perhaps in a lesser degree. This is sincerely to be deplored, since his theory would have gained in depth if he had but done full justice to the internal principle of development. ...
— At the Deathbed of Darwinism - A Series of Papers • Eberhard Dennert
... Let us turn back and read it again—I suspect that, after all, we are all of us small enough to sit in a chimney corner; and perhaps every book is but a picture story-book to the man or woman who is old enough and big enough ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester
... the ghost of the German endeavour still flung itself along the road. "Nach Verdun! Nach Verdun!" without a pause, with head down. "Nach Verdun," so that no one might go wrong, go aside, go astray, turn back against the order of the arrow. Not an ...
— The Happy Foreigner • Enid Bagnold
... versemaking would write such stuff. Read the speech through, and then think of the writer of "Hamlet," and "Lear," and "Othello," producing such a weak wash of words at the same time when he was writing those tragedies. And even turn back and compare it with the rhyming speeches of his other supernatural personages, of Puck and Titana and Oberon in "A Midsummer Night's Dream," which he wrote at least ten or twelve years earlier, and you will see that it ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... a little farther," he said, "and then, if we don't see any sign of the place, it may be best to go back, for it is easy to get lost in these woods. We are going east now and luckily the sun is shining. When we do turn back, we must keep the sun behind us and we can't help coming out somewhere on the lake. Remember the pewit call if we lose sight ...
— The Scotch Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... scarcely have been seen, for every one was occupied with the experiments going on, when a lady approached the queen, and, offering her a mask, implored her to turn back." ...
— The Queen's Necklace • Alexandre Dumas pere
... think of." "Will he meet the canoes, or will he face the three on the island? The white man sees the canoes; he waves them to go back, but they smell meat; they keep on." "What is this? He points his gun at them. They stop; they turn back." ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... conversed, were excessively sanguine. Could the King be once brought they said, to promise the Netherlands his protection, there was not the least fear but that he would keep his word. He would use all the means within his power; "yea, he would take the crown from his head," rather than turn back. Although reluctant to commence a war with so powerful a sovereign, having once promised his help, he would keep his pledge to the utmost, "for he was a King of his word," and had never broken and would never break his faith with those ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... commands. But we had scarce begun to tie a couple of planks together before it was plain that our labour would be in vain. For even while the man had been telling his tale the weather had grown much rougher, and we could see that the skiff was unable to remain longer near to us, but had to turn back for her own safety to the islands. I felt very sure that Captain Amber must be in anguish, having thus to leave us, his dear Lancelot and some seventy of his sailors and followers, on board a vessel that might cease to be ...
— Marjorie • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... that those eyes looked at him for a moment, and he felt ashamed. He could not so much as salute Captain Taunton in the street like any other officer. He was reproached and confused,—troubled by the mere possibility of the Captain's looking at him. In his worst moments, he would rather turn back, and go any distance out of his way, than encounter those two handsome, ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various
... the day I left the white strand? I did not find anyone to give me advice, or to tell me not to go. But with the help of God, as I have my health, and the help of the King of Grace, whichever State I will go to, I will never turn back again. ...
— Poets and Dreamers - Studies and translations from the Irish • Lady Augusta Gregory and Others
... He turned round to me and said, "It looks as though we should find barricades out there, sir; shall we turn back?" ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... been traveling homeward in my own carriage, the remaining chapters of this narrative would never have been written. Before we had been an hour on the road I should have called to the driver, and should have told him to turn back. ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... to turn back," he said, "yet I'm doing it, because—because—I wouldn't have you think me sullen or ill-tempered with you! Nor ungrateful. You're a good woman, for all that you're a bit rough sometimes. If you want to know ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... Outagamies had lately removed their villages. The warriors were all on snow-shoes, for the weather was cold and the snow deep. Some of the elders, overcome by the hardships of the way, called a council and proposed to turn back; but the juniors were for pushing on at all risks, and a young warrior declared that he would rather die than go home without killing somebody. The result was a division of the party; the elders returned to Chicago, and the younger men, forty Hurons ...
— A Half Century of Conflict - Volume I - France and England in North America • Francis Parkman
... of the boys, the biggest and dirtiest, and he jumped across the brook. Joel went steadily along as well as he could for the vines and stubby trees, determined not to turn back for anybody's call, at any ...
— The Adventures of Joel Pepper • Margaret Sidney
... your life, the oracle which would, if you could read it, solve all your mysteries and tell you just exactly how you ought to live. Look up out of the valley and know that it is there; and then turn back again into the valley, for in the valley is the home where you must live, and you can never read the oracle which you know is there upon ...
— The Life Radiant • Lilian Whiting
... next behind, and then Ghek had drawn Tara upward and a turn in the stairway shut the battling panthan from her view; but still she heard the ring of steel on steel, the clank of accouterments and the shrill whistling of the kaldanes. Her heart moved her to turn back to the side of her brave defender; but her judgment told her that she could serve him best by being ready at the control of the flier at the ...
— The Chessmen of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... was much talking apart, and it was evident that the fate of the prisoners was not yet decided. The representations, however, which Father Hennepin had made, induced them to relinquish their contemplated enterprise, and to turn back from the war-path upon which they had entered. Just before night, one of the chiefs silently returned to Father Hennepin his peace calumet. This greatly increased their anxiety, as it was inferred that it was ...
— The Adventures of the Chevalier De La Salle and His Companions, in Their Explorations of the Prairies, Forests, Lakes, and Rivers, of the New World, and Their Interviews with the Savage Tribes, Two Hu • John S. C. Abbott
... How you are grown!" said he, and shook hands. "Yes, Bessie, I am on my way now to catch the boat. If you want to hear about your people, you must turn back with me, for I have not ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... the coolness departed. The sun hung overhead, blazing hot, and the air in the forest grew dense and heavy. He would have been glad to turn back into the road, in the hope of finding a breeze in the open space, but caution still kept him in the forest. He soon saw two men in brown jeans riding mules, farmers perhaps, but carrying rifles on their shoulders, and, drawing his horse behind ...
— The Rock of Chickamauga • Joseph A. Altsheler
... his favourite attitude just behind it—listening. To search through that dark room for him seemed hopeless; to enter the same small space where he was seemed horrible. The very idea filled me with loathing, and I almost decided to turn back. ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various
... this morning for a hurried consultation of certain encyclopaedic volumes, and it chanced that Marian was standing before the shelves to which his business led him. He saw her from a little distance, and paused; it seemed as if he would turn back; for a moment he wore a look of doubt and worry. But after all he proceeded. At the sound of his 'Good-morning,' Marian started—she was standing with an open book in hand—and looked up with a gleam of joy ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... long to look at it—not long to search its borders for some sign of the living. The dark came swiftly. As he was about to turn back, he thought he caught a glimpse of a spiral of smoke upon the farther side, but as he stared at this, it faded until he was not sure it had been at all. He took it for a good-night message from her. Then gold and jewels, though they might be within ...
— The Web of the Golden Spider • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... the enemy to follow him, who still fell upon the hindmost, and destroyed them; they also fell upon the flank on each side of the army, and threw darts upon them obliquely, nor durst those that were hindmost turn back upon those who wounded them behind, as imagining that the multitude of those that pursued them was immense; nor did they venture to drive away those that pressed upon them on each side, because they were ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus
... do not remember our consulting much about it; we went through my room into my husband's apartment through the dressing-room, but the door of communication into his study was locked, so there was nothing for it but to turn back and go by the gallery to the other door. I recollect noticing one or two things in these rooms, then seen by me for the first time. I remember the sweet perfume that hung in the air, the scent bottles of silver that decked his toilet-table, and the whole apparatus for bathing and dressing, ...
— The Grey Woman and other Tales • Mrs. (Elizabeth) Gaskell
... who brings a child into the world shows more heroism than Teddy Roosevelt when he charged up San Juan Hill?'—what'll Jim do about that? Turn to the sporting page just the same, maybe. But after he's absorbed the ball-scores, he'll turn back to the editorial. You see, he never thought about Mrs. Jones ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams |
